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Design Studio: Arch. 574 E-1 Studio Location: 317 Buell Hall Spring Semester 2017 Time: M-W-F 13:00 - 16:50 Studio Critic: Prof. Botond Bognar Office: Arch 304 Tel: 333-1883 e-mail: bbognar@illinois.edu Office hours: by appointment URBAN COMPLEX IN TOKYO’S VOLATILE METROPOLIS Boutique Hotel with a Japanese Spa, and a Public Urban Gallery In the studio students work in groups of two (Start thinking with whom you want to work ASAP) SITE The location is at one of Tokyo’s busiest intersections at the Aoyama-dori and Omotesando Avenues. The urban environment here is rather futuristic, where reality and imagination or fiction are virtually inseparable; here the city never sleeps. This is a popular area dotted with all the international fashion brand companies and their signature buildings. The architectural landscape here has been shaped by such prominent designers as Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma, Toyo Ito, Herzog and DeMeuron, SANAA, MVRDV, Jun Aoki, Kisho Kurokawa, and many others. The unusual site of your project occupies the N-E corner of the intersection, which is served by three subway lines with several entrances, one being on the small corner plaza. PROGRAM The program for the architectural complex on this unusual site is rather flexible; it will be an urban Boutique Hotel of about 150-180 rooms, a full-fledged Japanese spa (ofuro) and health maintenance center for the guests, a public gallery and information center with a small, 40-seat presentation hall, a café/snack bar, and some commercial facilities. This complex would have a public B1 level, which needs to connect to the underground pedestrian concurs from where the subway platforms are accessed. You do not need to include parking for the facility. While you will have a detailed program, its components could be adjusted to the site conditions and according to your proposed scheme. This means that, within limits, you decide the number and size of these spaces. These issues need to be discussed with and approved by your instructor. The most important CHALLENGES (or issues) in your design -- The first issue is: how to respond to a fast changing context of the city, and how to negotiate the relationship between public and private domains, not merely as program definition that this space is public or that one is private, but also the articulation of spatial relationships. The city, a wonderful place of human aspirations, can provide the conditions of both significant public experiences as well as private ones in many ways. This can happen even simultaneously if the resolution of the architecture is well articulated. -- In close connection with the first issue, the relationship between outside and inside, or the definition of the boundaries of the building as zones, is one of the most important dimension aspects of your design. -- Although your complex in most parts is public, you will need to provide protection from the intrusions of the less than beneficial attributes of the urban realm, thus provide privacy as well. -- This paradoxical condition of responding to the given, highly charged and volatile urban context lies in the center of this design project. I am looking forward to working with you. B. Bognar, Professor and Edgar A. Tafel Endowed Chair in Architecture.

URBAN COMPLEX IN TOKYO’S VOLATILE METROPOLIS

Boutique Hotel with a Japanese Spa, and a Public, Urban Gallery

Bognar Studio of 574/75 Spring 2017

Kengo Kuma – Boutique Hotels in Beijing and Shanghai, China

On a uniquely irregular site in one of Tokyo’s prominent downtown areasthe Spring Semester project will be a medium-size boutique hotel with a spa including the Japanese bath (ofuro), and a public, urban art gallery…

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Views of Omotesando Ave.

View of the corner site in the center with Kuma’s building on the left and Aoyama-dori Ave on the right

Kengo Kuma – One Omotesando, 2004

SANAA – DIOR Boutique, 2004

Kenzo Tange – Tokyo Olympic Stadiums, 1964

I am looking forward to working with you

Botond BognarProfessor and Edgar A. TafelEndowed Chair in Architecture